Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on telegram
Share on whatsapp
Share on linkedin
Share on print
Share on email

Xi’s Anti-corruption Drive is Deadlier for Generals than the Sino-Japanese War

◎ The spike in senior military official suicides suggests that they are afraid of being punished for their past offenses.

Chinese state media announcement on Nov. 28 that former Central Military Commission Political Work Department chief Zhang Yang had committed suicide is the first official confirmation that a high-ranking general had killed himself.

In consolidating reports from overseas Chinese media, at least 15 high-ranking officers (colonels and generals) in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have committed suicide since Xi Jinping took office in 2012 and launched the anti-corruption campaign.

By contrast, only one Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general was killed by troops from a foreign country. General Zuo Quan, a senior staff officer of the Eighth Route Army, was hit by Japanese artillery in 1942 and succumbed to his wounds. Two other generals died during the Second Sino-Japanese War period (1937-1945), but not while fighting the Japanese. Peng Xuefeng was killed in action in 1944 while engaging Kuomintang troops, while Gao Jingting was executed by his troops in 1939 for ignoring Mao Zedong’s Party line on not aggressively attacking the Japanese. Meanwhile, over 200 Kuomintang generals were killed fighting the Japanese.  

The list:

Some notable suicide cases since the start of the anti-corruption drive include (in order of date):

Sept. 2, 2014: Major general Jiang Zhonghua, South Sea Fleet Armaments Department director, jumped off a building in Ningbo.

Nov. 13, 2014: Lieutenant general Ma Faxiang, PLA Navy deputy political commissar, jumped off a building in a naval compound. Official reports said that Ma died of illness.

Late November 2014: Major general Song Yuwen, deputy political commissar of the Jilin Provincial Military Region, hanged himself.

Feb. 10, 2015: Colonel Liu Zhirong, General Staff Operations, Air Traffic Control director and National Air Traffic Control Office deputy director, jumped off a building.

Early July 2016: Major General Zhang Ming, formerly the chief of staff of the Jinan Provincial Military District, jumped off a building after he was investigated and found to be involved in the Xu Caihou corruption case.

August 2016: Major general Chen Jie, political commissar of the 42 Army Group, overdosed on sleeping pills.

A military official in charge of propaganda in the Nanjing Military District jumped off the Fourth Nanjing Yangtze Bridge and drowned in the Yangtze River.

Colonel Li Fuwen, Naval Logistics Department Business Management Center director, jumped off the PLA Navy headquarters building in Beijing.

Sept. 13, 2016: Major general Qu Rui, the deputy director of the CMC Joint Staff Department’s operations bureau, hanged himself during the period where he was investigated.

Nov. 23, 2017: General Zhang Yang, the CMC Political Work Department director, hanged himself at home. He had been investigated since Aug. 28. (See our Nov. 28 article.)   

Why it matters: Jiang Zemin dominance over the military reduced Hu Jintao to a figurehead during his tenure as CCP leader. Jiang bought the loyalty of top generals by overseeing their promotion, while his cronies Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou fostered corruption in the military by getting senior officers to pay exorbitant cash sums to advance in rank.

The spike in senior military official suicides suggests that they are afraid of being punished for their past offenses.

Search past entries by date

Recommended articles

Political Censorship and the Communist-style Erosion of America
The 2020 US Presidential Election and the Communist Threat
Analyzing the Purge of Wang Qishan Aide Dong Hong
What the ‘Xi-Li Split’ Says About the State of the CCP Regime
Culture Strategy: Inoculating America and the World Against China’s ‘Virulent Strain of Communism’
The Trump Administration Is Tough and Strategic on China
Politics Watch: Hong Kong’s NatSec Set Up Signals ‘Supra-authority’ Status of the CCP’s NatSec Commission
Politics Watch: Ramifications of the Hong Kong Security Law for CCP Factional Politics
Politics Watch: Fourth Plenum Timing and Agenda Confirm Political Crisis in China
Influence Watch: Why the CCP Fears an Ideological Battle and a ‘Clash of Civilizations’
Politics Watch: Xi Faces Pushback from the Intelligence Apparatus
Why Xi Jinping Removed China’s Presidential Term Limit

Testimonials

“The breadth of SinoInsider’s insights—from economics through the military to governance, all underpinned by unparalleled reporting on the people in charge—is stunning. In my over fifty years of in-depth reading on the PRC, unclassified and classified, SinoInsider is in a class all by itself.”
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Unique insights are available frequently from the reports of Sinoinsider.”
Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow for China Strategy, The Heritage Foundation
“Thank you for your information and analysis. Very useful.”
Prof. Ravni Thakur, University of Delhi, India
“SinoInsider’s research has helped me with investing in or getting out of Chinese companies.”
Charles Nelson, Managing Director, Murdock Capital Partners
“I value SinoInsider because of its always brilliant articles touching on, to name just a few, CCP history, current trends, and factional politics. Its concise and incisive analysis — absent the cliches that dominate China policy discussions in DC and U.S. corporate boardrooms — also represents a major contribution to the history of our era by clearly defining the threat the CCP poses to American peace and prosperity and global stability. I am grateful to SinoInsider — long may it thrive!”
Lee Smith, Author and journalist
“Your publication insights tremendously help us complete our regular analysis on in-depth issues of major importance. ”
Ms. Nicoleta Buracinschi, Embassy of Romania to the People’s Republic of China
"I’m a very happy, satisfied subscriber to your service and all the deep information it provides to increase our understanding. SinoInsider is profoundly helping to alter the public landscape when it comes to the PRC."
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Prof. Ming’s information about the Sino-U.S. trade war is invaluable for us in Taiwan’s technology industry. Our company basically acted on Prof. Ming’s predictions and enlarged our scale and enriched our product lines. That allowed us to deal capably with larger orders from China in 2019. ”
Mr. Chiu, Realtek R&D Center
“I am following China’s growing involvement in the Middle East, seeking to gain a better understanding of China itself and the impact of domestic constraints on its foreign policy. I have found SinoInsider quite helpful in expanding my knowledge and enriching my understanding of the issues at stake.”
Ehud Yaari, Lafer International Fellow, The Washington Institute
“SinoInsider’s research on the CCP examines every detail in great depth and is a very valuable reference. Foreign researchers will find SinoInsider’s research helpful in understanding what is really going on with the CCP and China. ”
Baterdene, Researcher, The National Institute for Security Studies (Mongolian)
“The forecasts of Prof. Chu-cheng Ming and the SinoInsider team are an invaluable resource in guiding our news reporting direction and anticipating the next moves of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.”
Chan Miu-ling, Radio Television Hong Kong China Team Deputy Leader
“SinoInsider always publishes interesting and provocative work on Chinese elite politics. It is very worthwhile to follow the work of SinoInsider to get their take on factional struggles in particular.”
Lee Jones, Reader in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London
“[SinoInsider has] been very useful in my class on American foreign policy because it contradicts the widely accepted argument that the U.S. should work cooperatively with China. And the whole point of the course is to expose students to conflicting approaches to contemporary major problems.”
Roy Licklider, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
“As a China-based journalist, SinoInsider is to me a very reliable source of information to understand deeply how the CCP works and learn more about the factional struggle and challenges that Xi Jinping may face. ”
Sebastien Ricci, AFP correspondent for China & Mongolia
“SinoInsider offers an interesting perspective on the Sino-U.S. trade war and North Korea. Their predictions are often accurate, which is definitely very helpful.”
Sebastien Ricci, AFP correspondent for China & Mongolia
“I have found SinoInsider to provide much greater depth and breadth of coverage with regard to developments in China. The subtlety of the descriptions of China's policy/political processes is absent from traditional media channels.”
John Lipsky, Peter G. Peterson Distinguished Scholar, Kissinger Center for Global Affairs
“My teaching at Cambridge and policy analysis for the UK audience have been informed by insights from your analyzes. ”
Dr Kun-Chin Lin, University Lecturer in Politics,
Deputy Director of the Centre for Geopolitics, Cambridge University
" SinoInsider's in-depth and nuanced analysis of Party dynamics is an excellent template to train future Sinologists with a clear understanding that what happens in the Party matters."
Stephen Nagy, Senior Associate Professor, International Christian University
“ I find Sinoinsider particularly helpful in instructing students about the complexities of Chinese politics and what elite competition means for the future of the US-China relationship.”
Howard Sanborn, Professor, Virginia Military Institute
“SinoInsider has been one of my most useful (and enjoyable) resources”
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Professor Ming and his team’s analyses of current affairs are very far-sighted and directionally accurate. In the present media environment where it is harder to distinguish between real and fake information, SinoInsider’s professional perspectives are much needed to make sense of a perilous and unpredictable world. ”
Liu Cheng-chuan, Professor Emeritus, National Chiayi University
Previous
Next